Cotswold
Pineward Perfumes (2021)

Cotswold IMO is a good entry fragrance to the darkest of the line, including Murkwood, Brokilan, Fanghorn II or Eldritch. Not that dark as the ones mentioned, but gives you a nice overview what darker Pineward are about.

Cotswold to me is spicy, a little bit sweet and smoky. It has conifers that you can detect in other scents from the line, but it's also got ponderosa, I think it's Nick's experiment with that note and led to creation of a perfume called Ponderosa.

Longevity is around 9-10 hours, sillage is quite good.

In general: semi-sweet and semi-smoky. Well balanced.

Cotswold is a pleasant tobacco-dark with wood smell. It's more indoors than Pineward Steading, but has a similar antique gentlemanly mood. To me, it smells rather like the inside of a well-cared-for antique dresser drawer (yes, I know that's awfully specific!): dry, well-cured wood, and the accumulated relics of various aromatic things that might have been stored in it. On wearing, it becomes a bit sweeter and more syrupy, but retains its essential dusty, woody character. It doesn't project much, at least not applied from a dabber bottle.

Sampling Pineward Cotswold, a smoky, sweet, resinous mix featuring cedar, vanilla, oak, and pine, noticeably less green and fresh than Boreal, and with less pine than Bindebole, and without the apple of Apple Tabac. It’s a layered yet straightforward blend that really works for the cooler weather and strikes me as a staple, agreeable offering for fans of natural, dense blends like this, midway between and spicy while being dark and resinous throughout, the resin itself being unclear but not giving me a distinct vibe of, say, myrrh or olibanum.

Some immediate comparisons that come to mind, while not remotely replicas, are, with their more distinguishing notes in parentheses: Kerosene Broken Theories (tobacco), Slumberhouse Ore (pepper), and Imaginary Authors Memoirs of a Trespasser (myrrh), as each has a vaguely similar arrangement of vanilla/woods/resins while having a notably distinct aspect/note of its own. Cotswold is more agreeable and central than any of the others, so it’s an easy recommendation to try even if it is less boundary-pushing than the comparisons.

Overall, I love Cotswold, and it hits the mark, even if I feel like I’ve smelled it before somewhat in other fragrances. Performance is great, and the pricing is the same as the rest of the line, at $135/80 for 37/17ml.

I could see this being a crowd favorite of the line, particularly for those looking for something less pine-centric.

8 out of 10